


Sisyphean

by Terminallydepraved



Series: Works for Others [6]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Blood, Character Death, M/M, commission, companion fic to Arcadia, unrequited feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:45:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terminallydepraved/pseuds/Terminallydepraved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”</p><p>― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays </p><p>(companion fic to Arcadia)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sisyphean

**Author's Note:**

> a commission for tumblr user sketchxhunter! they asked for "hisofeikuro similar to Arcadia" so i was like, why don't i just literally give you Arcadia. same as with that one, this fic is really angsty and sad, know your own limits and don't read if you can't handle that sort of shit.

If someone asked him why he stopped, Feitan wouldn’t have an answer.

Call it curiosity. Call it intuition. He didn’t have the words to describe what he felt when he stumbled upon the shack and found a boy inside, weak and half dead but for the flutter of his eyelids and the slow rise and fall of his chest.

He’d say it was opportunity, but it’d be a lie. It wasn’t likely that some slum rat kid had anything of worth in his hideout. All the same though, Feitan drew closer and peered in, wondering how close he could get before the boy either reacted or died in front of him.

He managed to crawl inside the shack and hover over him before he even got acknowledged, which was far closer than he expected given the general distrust and viciousness of slum-dwellers.

“You alive?” he asked, taking in the kid’s gaunt face and dry lips. If he was as starved and dehydrated as he looked, he wouldn’t be for much longer.

The boy barely opened his eyes before closing them, effectively dismissing Feitan as if he were a fly.

Feitan frowned and drew his hand back, slapping the boy sharply on the cheek. “Wake,” he ordered, glaring when he only got a weak mumble and even weaker shove. With a groan, he bent down and yanked the boy’s arm until he had him upright, preventing him from going back to sleep.

“Leave me alone,” he moaned, his struggling not even enough to jostle Feitan, let alone push him away.

“If I leave, you die.”

It didn’t take a genius to gather that the boy didn’t give a shit.

Feitan grit his teeth and took in the conditions of the boy’s shack. It wasn’t shoddy compared to many of the shelters found in the slums. The roof was standing and the walls were ramshackle, but still solid. He kicked at the dirty blankets and scattered trash, taking in the small stack of books that had been buried beneath a pile of old clothes.

That was interesting. Books were rare out here. He looked at the boy beginning to slump to the side and rolled his eyes. If he had no will to live, then Feitan wouldn’t make him. He’d steal his valuables and leave him for the carrion birds.

He reached out to grab the thin book on top, done with trying to be altruistic.

A grip like iron fixed itself around his wrist and for a moment, Feitan worried the bone would snap.

“ _Don’t,”_ the boy snarled, the ember of life still in his eyes kindling into a scorching fire.

Feitan jerked back his hand and rubbed at the bruised flesh. For someone so weak, he was dangerous. Even half dead. “I thought you not care?” he shot. “You care more about book than you.”

“It was…” the boy began, averting his eyes. What fire they held seemed to smother, his strength gone at the mention of the books. “It was a gift.”

He raised a brow but didn’t get any more than that.

“You die soon. You don’t need books,” he reasoned, settling in beside the prone boy as he collapsed back onto his nest of blankets.

Pale fingers clenched weakly in the fabric. “I do,” he breathed, worn out already from his little outburst. “When he comes back, I need to have them waiting for him.”

“You not going to last long.”

“He’ll come back.”

“He who?”

“Hisoka.” The way he said the name sounded like a prayer.

Feitan frowned. “How long he gone?”

“Too long.”

 _Long enough to kill me,_ the silence that followed seemed to say. Feitan sighed. He didn’t know why he even cared enough to ask. If he were smart, he’d put the kid out of his misery and take the books. It’d take hardly a minute.

He reached for his makeshift pack and dug his hand inside. The knife brushed his fingers but he bypassed it, pulling out his canteen instead.

“It hot,” he said, putting the bottle to the boy’s cracking lips. “Drink before you die.”

For his trouble, all he got was a petulant frown and the boy turning away. Feitan snarled and grabbed the boy by his thick black hair, forcing his mouth to the canteen and pouring it down his throat whether he wanted to drink or not.

The effect was instantaneous. Coughing and sputtering, the boy drank to keep from drowning, his weak attempt at shoving Feitan away pitiful at best. Feitan kept it up until the bottle was empty and then reached into his bag again, pulling out a hunk of old bread he had stolen earlier in the day.

It was going to be his dinner, but he had eaten the day before. He ripped off a piece and shoved it in the kid’s mouth, ignoring his instincts telling him this was idiotic. A waste of resources. The kid was probably still going to die.

“Why are you doing this?” the boy managed to get out through the violent force feeding. Already his face showed more color, his eyes more alert than they had been the entire time Feitan had been there.

Feitan grimaced and shoved another bite of bread in the boy’s mouth, only stopping once he had the strength enough to sit up and eat for himself. “It pathetic to die like this,” he gave. His wrist still ached.

Someone that strong dying like this would be pathetic. A waste.

 _It’d also eliminate competition,_ his mind supplied. Feitan smothered it. It was too late to take it back now.

Now that there was something in his stomach, the boy’s appetite came back with a vengeance. He snatched up the remaining bread and ate it fast enough to make himself sick. Through the mouthfuls, he looked miserable.

“You shouldn’t bother, whatever reason you decided to give yourself for doing this,” he said, licking his fingers clean of any crumbs. “I’m not worth it.”

“Probably.” Feitan settled into the ratty fabric and made himself comfortable. The sun would go down in a few hours so there wasn’t much of a point in going back to scavenging. “But I did anyway. Deal with it.”

The ghost of a laugh broke from the boy’s surprised lips and Feitan almost jumped, startled. “I guess with that logic I don’t have much choice,” he said, staring down at his hands folded in his lap. “What’s your name, anyway? Do we know each other?”

“Feitan. No.”

“Huh. I’m Chrollo.”

Chrollo. Weird name. It suited him.

The silence grew between them. Chrollo fidgeted with his hands and the fabric. Feitan chewed his lip. “Who is Hisoka?” he asked on a whim.

He hadn’t thought it possible for Chrollo to look even more dejected than he had when he walked in. Shoulders slumped and eyes averted, he stared at the books in the corner, still half buried beneath a pile of too-big clothing. “He was my everything,” he said after a few moments of terse silence.

Feitan blinked. “Did he…die?” he asked slowly, realizing how sore a subject this was. But, like prodding at a fresh bruise, he couldn’t help but ask for more.

Chrollo finally looked up, his dark eyes empty. “He left me,” he admitted, though his voice seemed to break a little by verbalizing it. As if it made it real. “I told him I loved him and then he left me.”

There really wasn’t anything to say to that. He shifted awkwardly and scratched at his head. “So you thought it good idea to starve to death?” he ended up saying, deciding if nothing else, he could be annoyed. It felt better than being sympathetic or whatever it was he felt in the pit of his stomach.

“I didn’t know what to do.”

“Eat. It not that hard.”

Chrollo glared at him and for the first time since he got there, Feitan smiled. “What about you?” the boy turned, probably growing tired of the questions and teasing. “What are you doing out here? I’ve never seen you around these parts.”

Feitan leaned back a bit and shrugged. “Looting,” he gave. “My side hard to loot now. Mafia come in, stir things up. It not so bad over here.”

“What would they want in the slums?” he asked, and Feitan could see the inquisitive look in his eye brighten. Some of the misery seemed to slough off him the more they spoke about other things. Feitan encouraged it, answering every question to the best of his abilities.

Before long, the sun lowered and the temperature began to drop. Chrollo was animatedly talking about something or other. He had learned a lot about him. They were both orphans, both lived in the slums and stole to get by.

“-and there are these massive—”

“I need leave,” Feitan interrupted, shuffling onto his knees. “It dark soon. It long walk back to my side.”

Chrollo stopped and his jaw closed with an audible click. “Oh,” he said, as if he had forgotten that time passed whether he was paying attention or not.

It was pretty obvious that he didn’t really want him to go just yet, but he wasn’t lying. It was a long walk and he should have left an hour ago if he’d really wanted to be safe. Feitan turned to leave only to have his wrist grabbed again. This time though, it didn’t threaten to break the bone.

“Please, Feitan,” Chrollo whispered, his eyes hidden a bit behind his bangs. “Will you come back tomorrow?”

It took a minute for him to grasp what the problem was. Feitan bit his lip and looked out across the slums. It wouldn’t be hard to break the grip. His own place was far from here. He’d be walking in the dark if he lingered any longer, and as adept as he was, it still was anything but safe out there.

_He left me. I told him I loved him and then he left._

He wondered when exactly he had turned into such a sap.

“Move over,” he pushed, crawling back inside the shack to lay down on the pile of blankets. “You better not snore.”

Chrollo stared at him, his eyes wide. “You’re…you’re really going to stay?” he asked, his voice as shaky as a leaf in fall.

Feitan turned himself towards the wall to avoid the grateful look, closing his eyes stubbornly. “You have better shelter anyway.”

He said it like an excuse and it tasted like one.  

oOo

“Why you keep cards?” Feitan asked one afternoon, the balmy weather making him lethargic and curious. “Why you no sell?”

Chrollo flinched and nearly dropped the deck he had been holding, the glossy cards an almost blinding white in the burning sunlight. He stared down at his hands and shuffled them clumsily. “They were a gift,” he mumbled after a handful of heartbeats.

“From that Hisoka?”

“For.”

Feitan flicked his eyes over to him, sitting up a bit. “You not give them to him?”

He worried his lip until Feitan half expected it to start bleeding. “I did,” he said. “And then I woke up with them next to my head and him gone.”

Feitan didn’t know what to say to that so he didn’t say anything. A breeze picked up and ruffled their hair, doing little to cool them off. Summer always was the worst. Sweat and dust stuck to his skin and his thirst was near constant. He took a small drink from his canteen and passed it to Chrollo, knowing by now not to trust him to maintain his body without some measure of force.

“You know, cards worth lot,” he posed, watching to be sure that Chrollo drank more than just a mouthful. “They not easy to find.”

Chrollo wiped his mouth and handed the bottle back with a sigh. “I nearly died getting them, so I’m aware,” he said. “I would’ve if Hisoka hadn’t come when he did and helped.”

Feitan watched the dirt below their feet rise and spin in the gentle wind. “He not appreciate effort.” He kicked at the dirt clods, ignoring how the bright white kept catching his eye in his peripherals. “You better off without him.”

“Maybe…” Chrollo stopped, swallowing. Feitan waited, hyperaware of the weight of him settling against his shoulder. “Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

The pain and rawness in his voice made him shift. Feitan wished he had a better grasp on the language. His vocabulary wasn’t soft enough for this conversation.

“You know yourself,” he tried, after chewing the words in his mouth to make sure the taste wasn’t as bitter as he worried it would be. “Know yourself and find new thing to live for. He not worth you killing yourself. He not do the same.”

“But what else is there?”

Feitan had no idea how a person could think something as stupid and base as love could ever be something worth dying over. He reached for the deck of cards slowly and was a little surprised when Chrollo handed them over. They were as good as new, shiny and such a bright white that it nearly hurt to look directly at them.

It was such a wasted gift, especially on someone who didn’t even appreciate the effort.

“Live for money,” he said, flicking through the cards to look at each picture. “Live for thrill. Live to spit at ones who think you scum.”

Chrollo smiled a little. “So I should live like you?” he clarified.

“You should just live,” he gave, refusing to look up from his hands. The Jack stared back at him, the hearts on the corners glistening like blood in the baking sun. “Find purpose as you go.”

“You’re surprisingly wise sometimes,” Chrollo said, laughing a little when Feitan shoved at him. His eyes softened when he reached for the cards again. Feitan gave them without a fight and he shuffled them in his hands, tracing the thick lines of the numbers with his fingertips.

Feitan bit his lip and crossed his arms. “You should sell it.”

Dark eyes flicked up to meet his. “Should I?” he asked, his voice quiet.

“You think he come back.”

Chrollo shrunk in on himself a little. “He might still.”

Feitan put a hand on his shoulder, feeling the bones still so prominent against his skin. “You know he won’t. You should sell. You should eat,” he said, as gently as he knew how.

Silence followed but Feitan knew well enough what it sounded like when Chrollo gave up.

They went together to the market after that and Feitan stood as a support when Chrollo handed over the deck of cards for a bag of bread.

“You do right thing,” he said.

“I feel like I’m letting go of something,” Chrollo whispered back, staring at the food in the rough sackcloth. “Like he’s really gone now.”

He almost scoffed. If only that were true. “Good,” he replied instead, taking his companion by the sleeve and tugging him into the shade. “Letting go mean you can move on. Move on mean change.”

Chrollo let himself be pushed down onto the ground. “And what does change mean?” He reached into the sack and broke the bread, handing half to Feitan without being asked. The piece he kept in his own hand wasn’t immediately eaten. He stared at it as if wondering if he should, if partaking would mean another severed tie from his lost love.

With a roll of his eyes, Feitan took his friend by the wrist and brought the bread to his mouth for him, taking a bite of his own. “It mean you make your own path. You be anyone you want and you get what you want.”

“You got me now,” Feitan said through a mouthful of bread, “and we make our own way.”

oOo

If there was one thing Feitan could always be certain of, it was that he knew Chrollo.

Feitan measured the years with shared scars and bloodied smiles. Both grew wider the more they went along together, killing and stealing and living the life they wanted, not the life fate had chosen for them.

It was a marked difference from when they had first met. Nowadays, Chrollo smiled freely, be there a reason for it or not.

They would be penniless and broken but Chrollo would still turn to him with that blasted grin. When they both had nothing, they still had each other he would say, for what little good it did either of them.

Feitan kicked the dirt below his feet and ground his teeth, watching Chrollo approach the pale headed man. He knew Chrollo and he knew what he was like, but even knowing did little when it came to deterring him from readily running into the open arms of danger.

“You’re really strong,” Chrollo said, his arm held tightly in the man’s bone-crushing hand. It had to hurt but Chrollo just sounded impressed. “Ever consider being a thief? We have an opening in our group.” Feitan could see the aura pouring off the fist and how much the guy was holding back. If it were him being held like that, he probably wouldn’t be smiling so widely. He probably would have taken the hand already and gone for the man’s head next.

But this was Chrollo and Chrollo played with other people’s hatsu like they were toys. Feitan sighed and watched, hoping he wouldn’t have to intervene. The heat of this place sapped his energy, leaving him irritable and lethargic.

The man furrowed his brow, something that held little weight considering he didn’t have eyebrows, and smirked dangerously. “You stole my wallet and thought I’d forgive you if you gave me a job offer instead? You must really want to die,” he rumbled.

Feitan rolled his eyes and readied his sword with a sigh. In a flash he was behind them, the blade pointed at the man’s thick neck. “Listen to offer or die,” Feitan hissed. “He good enough to kill you with look. Be good enough to hold your tongue.”

“Flatterer,” Chrollo laughed, tugging his arm free of the bruising grip. “But he is right. You should consider it. We look out for our own, if you’re looking for a place to belong.”

With only a look, he had Feitan easing the pressure of his blade. Feitan pulled back and gave the man some space, staring at Chrollo as he watched him coax the man from his anger and then, into putty in his hand. He averted his eyes and turned to look at the crowd that had gathered to watch. Most hoped for a fight that Feitan knew wouldn’t come to pass.

When Chrollo spoke, people listened. This man wasn’t any different.

If he let himself think about it much, Feitan knew he wasn’t any different either.

If Chrollo asked, he’d follow him anywhere. If Chrollo asked, he’d die for him. He didn’t know if Chrollo knew that but he expected he did. Chrollo knew everything. Feitan sheathed his sword and crossed his arms, feeling the overwhelming weight of the sun bear down on them from above. Be it devotion or obsession, Chrollo brought out the worst in people.

Even knowing that, Feitan couldn’t help but wonder what he’d mold this man into and whether Chrollo had finished molding him yet. He wondered what would be left at the end. His stomach flipped nervously at the thought.

They gained members in a similar fashion as they traveled, leaving the question unanswered.

Feitan would watch Chrollo approach them, one by one, always alone. Some were powerful, others unique. The copier held his fake vase in his hands, seated dejectedly on the stoop of the museum as he played and prodded with it.

 _He not strong,_ Feitan had complained.

 _Strength is relative, Feitan,_ Chrollo had replied with a laugh before sitting beside the small stranger, asking, _how would you like to hold the real thing?_

He swallowed his protests when it happened again, off in a place that even seemed a wasteland compared to the rest of Meteor City. The one they found next was strange. Feitan couldn’t help but stare as Chrollo approached the man more hole than whole and asked him about his beliefs, his ancestors, how the music made with his body served to honor them.

 _He’s a freak,_ Feitan had said, though it wasn’t an insult. _Monster._

 _Better a monster than the mundane,_ Chrollo had laughed, and Feitan could only agree.

A young girl, blood-soaked and absent minded on the side of a muddy road, joined them on the outskirts of a bustling city soon after. Chrollo had taken one look and wrapped her in his coat, easing the bloodied knife from her white-knuckled hand.

 _“We can be your family,”_ he had whispered in her ear. _“We won’t be so easy to kill.”_

She clung to him the way a child clings to their mother and Feitan didn’t say a word this time.

Chrollo knew what he was doing.

His trust was absolute.

oOo

“Did you hear about the new member?” Phinks gossiped, sitting alongside Feitan in whatever derelict ruin Chrollo had chosen to set up shop in this time. “Machi told me he’s even worse than Omokage.”

“It take worse to kill scum,” Feitan replied, not caring.

Phinks wasn’t deterred. “Can you believe he’s only joining to fight the boss? She says this Hisoka guys is a real piece—”

Feitan froze, staring up at the blond man.

“Hisoka,” he repeated.

“Yeah,” Phinks said, confused. “Hisoka.”

The entire troupe looked up when Machi led in the new replacement and Feitan didn’t try to hide his snarl of distaste. Omokage hadn’t been loved by any of them but he hadn’t thought it possible to hate someone more than he had hated him.

But, as he was sure Hisoka loved to think, the magician had a way of ruining expectations.

It was only out of respect for Chrollo and his past that he didn’t gut the man the moment he walked into the ruined chapel. Murmurs rose up around him and Feitan ignored Phinks whispering into his ear. He grit his teeth and bared them like an animal promising evisceration when Hisoka’s piss yellow eyes met his. If anyone deserved the pleasure of killing him, it was Chrollo.

He waited for the ball to drop. He knew just from Chrollo’s fevered descriptions that this was the man who had left him to die in the slums. Back then, in the dead of night, he’d whisper to Feitan. _He taught me to read,_ he’d say, _he would bring me candy. I’d sit and watch him talk and think ‘how could anyone be so colorful?’_

And the man was colorful. The candles lit around the chapel hall gave only dim light, but it was more than enough to illuminate the vibrant crimson of Hisoka’s hair, the rainbow he wore in his clothes and makeup.

Feitan bared his teeth and wanted to paint it all red.

“You must be the new number four, Hisoka,” Chrollo greeted, closing his book and setting it beside him. His hands folded in his lap as he took him in and Feitan waited for them to strike. “I heard you killed Omokage. You must be pretty strong. Welcome to the Spiders.”

Hisoka grinned and looked far too pleased with himself. “It’s a pleasure to be here. Please treat me well.” It was obvious he didn’t care that the one before him was Chrollo, if he hadn’t known already. Feitan ground his teeth and ignored Phinks’s concerned prodding. He wouldn’t allow himself to miss a moment of this.

Instead of anger though, Chrollo just nodded.

To his horror, Chrollo simply turned instead to the group at large, meeting everyone’s gaze before speaking.

Feitan couldn’t register any of it. Details were laid down, objectives and mission teams organized. Phinks chimed in when he didn’t answer. All he could do was sit and stare, watching Hisoka slink away from the center slab where Chrollo rested and retreat towards the far wall.

Did neither recognize each other? Was this the wrong man? His mind burned to know. A decade had passed but Feitan knew Chrollo. He wouldn’t allow himself to forgive and forget. Not something like that.

“Everybody get some rest,” Chrollo finished up, reaching again for his book. “We move out at first light.”

Feitan didn’t even give him time to open it before racing to his side.

“Why you no kill him?” Feitan hissed, leaning closer to Chrollo so as not to be overheard. Hisoka had wandered away as quickly as he could following the mission outline, not even bothering to talk to Chrollo himself. “He that Hisoka, right?”

Chrollo simply smiled as impassively as he always did. “He’s part of the Troupe now, Fei. My personal feelings don’t matter. Don’t go starting a fight with him, okay?”

Feitan couldn’t just accept that. “Chrollo, you almost die because of him,” he pushed, glancing over his shoulder to see the man had situated himself in the far window sill, as apart as he could be in the chapel’s main hall. “He want to kill you still. You have to know that.”

“Do you think he’s capable of killing me, Feitan?”

He blinked, nonplussed. No matter how he saw it, Chrollo was still the strongest person he had ever known.

But it didn’t always take strength to bring ruin.

Chrollo smiled as comfortingly as he could and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re the best friend I’ve got, Fei. I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine. Whatever past he and I had won’t affect our future.”

Feitan didn’t believe him but he knew how pointless it was to argue anything with Chrollo. He softened his disgust and gave a nod, turning towards his perch as the rest began to mill off wherever they had chosen to sleep for the night. He settled in but watched Chrollo go back to reading.

Before a job like this, Chrollo never slept.

Feitan decided that he wouldn’t sleep either.

Hours passed in silence and he could count one by one as the rest of the Troupe began to succumb to sleep. Phinks was first as usual, and then Uvo. Paku, Kortopi, and Machi followed in rapid succession, Shizuku only giving in once she knew for sure that the candle near her head wouldn’t burn out. The girl never broke her need for a light at night. Feitan knew Chrollo coddled her with it, keeping it lit long after she had fallen asleep.

Before long, only he, Chrollo, and Hisoka remained. Feitan closed his eyes and slowed his heart, counting each beat as it came. Hisoka was no doubt doing the same, refusing to sleep until all others had gone first.

He nearly lost count when he registered Chrollo stand, closing his book and leaving it on the stone slab behind him as he moved to the window sill where Hisoka lay. Feitan grit his teeth and started the count over. Something told him Chrollo wasn’t going over to kill him.

It was too far away to make out words, and he could tell just by listening that they were whispering to each other with anything but murderous intent. Feitan cracked open an eye just in time to see Chrollo throw himself into the man’s chest, shaking in a way that meant he was crying.

They whispered and laughed and were on the verge of kissing when something shifted between them and the mood went tense. Feitan held his breath. Whatever it was that was said, it made Chrollo talk louder.

“Is this about what Machi told me?” Chrollo demanded, his voice going harsh in the quiet night. It wasn’t loud, but it was just enough to reach Feitan in his cloistered alcove. “Hisoka, I can love you when you want to kill me. I don’t care.”

Feitan’s stomach dropped and he closed his eyes, unwilling to hear any more. A decade had passed and nothing had changed. Did Chrollo even realize what he was saying? He bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood. What Machi told him. So he knew, even before Feitan said anything, about Hisoka’s intent.

He pressed his temple to the cool stone wall and sighed, unease like a tight knot in the pit of his stomach. Chrollo was smart, he told himself. He was the smartest person he’d ever met. There was no way he’d let himself be taken in by another. What they had was built on a decade of trust and shared scars.

 _“But what else is there?”_ a phantom voice whispered in his ear.

Feitan smothered the memory of the small, skinny boy staring at cards so bright they burned.

That boy was dead. Chrollo wouldn’t be so easy to kill.

oOo

No matter what Chrollo said, Feitan couldn’t shake the feeling that where Hisoka walked, calamity followed.

It came in waves, in the lulls between jobs and in the adrenaline-soaked middle, always unexpected. Always unwanted.

In Feitan’s mind, it was always preventable.

He hit his breaking point the moment Chrollo came back from his part of the mission, a bullet in his shoulder and blood soaking the white of his shirt. _It was meant for Hisoka,_ Chrollo explained as Machi readied her nen thread. _I just moved without thinking._

Some part of him wondered if that made idiocy and instinct alright, so long as he moved without thinking.

Within an instant he had Hisoka on his knees, the point of his sword resting on his collarbone. He spat a nasty curse at the man, his anger so strong that it came out in his mother tongue. Just one reason, he begged, digging the tip of the blade into his skin. Just give one reason to justify this. He only needed one.

“Hey, no fighting between members!” Nobunaga called out. A hand reached for Feitan’s shoulder and he shrugged it off, hissing. They had no idea. They had no idea the type of person residing in their midst.

Chrollo looked at him, his gaze pinning him in place before he could bury the point of his sword into Hisoka’s throat. He held out for less than a moment under its weight.

The sword sheathed with a soft _snick_ and Feitan turned, refusing to see the expression on Hisoka’s face as he stormed off. The heavy burden of Chrollo’s disappointment was pointed enough, even without it.

“I’d have done it for any of you,” Chrollo murmured into the air, aimed at Feitan’s retreating back. _You would have done it for me too, Fei._

Feitan didn’t know how to tell him that he didn’t care, so long as he didn’t do it for Hisoka. The man wasn’t worth his consideration, his affection. He wasn’t worth Chrollo’s life.

The nights though. It was the nights that were the worst.

Just like they had the first time Hisoka set foot among the Troupe, Chrollo would stay up and wait before going to him. Feitan tried to put it from his mind but the constant fear of something happening while the rest slept on was too real for him to ignore. He counted his heartbeats and stayed vigilant, even when their conversation was loud enough to hear.

“I love you,” he heard Chrollo moan and Feitan turned away, his insides burning with hatred and his face violently red. If only it were just the conversations that stayed audible. He could do without the rest.

He had left Chrollo. Abandoned him like trash. Left him to die. If it weren’t for Feitan, Chrollo would have wasted away in that shack, alone and pining and so miserable that it strangled all else until there was no space left for self-preservation to grow.

And yet still he loved Hisoka, an invasive, parasitic weed.

He swallowed down the bitter taste of bile and begged for sleep to come.

Maybe then he could forget his own feelings for a change.

oOo

In the end, it was the chain user who killed them all.

Feitan didn’t know whether to be grateful or rueful for that. He spat blood and couldn’t breathe through the fire in his lungs. _At least Chrollo won’t be killed by someone he love_ , he thought errantly, searching the horizon for any sign of his friend. This way, neither of them could say ‘I told you so.’

He wondered if he really wanted to find Chrollo. It might be a boon to them both if they didn’t have to see each other die.

Pain ripped through him like a knife, hot and merciless, and black spotted his vision. There was no sign of the others. He’d watched Nobunaga fall, and then Franklin. The environment had taken most though, saving only a few of them for the chain user’s rage. He had thought together they’d be enough, but he’d been wrong. So wrong.

It hurt to move so he stopped, rolling onto his side to keep himself from drowning in the blood pooling in his throat. The dirt was soft in his hand, against his cheek. An ounce of fear took root in his stomach and the stars above seemed to mock him for it.

He didn’t want to die alone. Not here. Not like this.

He hadn’t even told Chrollo. Did he know? Did he know how much he meant to him? Chrollo had to, Feitan thought, his mind ringing and cacophonous. Chrollo was so smart. The smartest person he’d ever known.

“Feitan?” a voice called out, but he was too exhausted to turn to look. “Feitan, is that you? Are you alive?” Footfalls announced their hurried approach and he turned his gaze upwards, dirt caking his gasping lips.

What little blood he had left burned like molten iron when Hisoka’s colorful face fell into his line of sight.

Of course, he thought, a bit rabid. Of course it would be Hisoka. He swore into the dirt and tried to reach for his broken sword. If he could take him with him, at least he’d die without regrets.

An eddy of dust rose up when he coughed instead, the dirt sticking to his bleeding face. His hand was too heavy to move, and his sword too far away. Frustration swelled up like an ugly bruise and he settled for glaring, hoping his stare was half as hot as the raging sun boiling inside him.

“Where’s Chrollo?” he spat, flecking blood over his lips and the ground. “He not with you, holding your hand?”

Hisoka, for the first time in the years they’d known each other, looked fearful. “I don’t know,” he admitted, looking frantically around them as if he expected Chrollo to appear like magic. “I lost sight of him when it all began.”

Feitan laughed at that, rueful and painful and so goddamn sick of all of this. “It should have been you,” he said, barely able to look up at the man, his strength fading with each passing second. “It should be you lying dead here. You leave him. You leave him and he die for the memory.”

It hurt so much to speak but it was all worth it for the look of complete misery that made itself at home on the man’s face. “I had to—”

“Shut up!” he shouted, surprising even himself at the force. It was gone as quickly as it had come. Feitan leaned into the dirt, his shoulder trembling until he couldn’t hold himself up any longer. “Shut up,” he repeated to the dirt, angry tears melting into the blood and saliva covering his face. “No excuses. Chrollo worth more than shitty excuse.”

At least Hisoka had the sense to look cowed. “You’re dying,” he said, hushed.

Feitan managed a choked laugh, or was it a sob? He couldn’t tell. Everything looked black. Everything hurt. “No shit,” he said, wishing with all his heart that it wasn’t Hisoka seeing him off.

He wanted Chrollo. He had always wanted Chrollo.

Hisoka was silent and Feitan buried his eyes in the dirt. “I don’t know what to do,” he said slowly, crouching down beside his prone body. “I don’t know where he is. Feitan,” he went on, his voice shifting to something desperate. Something too human. “Feitan, do you know where he is?”

He longed to tell him to fuck off. The pain came in a sharper wave, seeming to crescendo no matter how he turned. The sky opened up above him and the foreign constellations seemed to mock him.

 _You’re going to die alone,_ they teased, their light dancing blurrily in his eyes. _You’re all going to die alone._

“If I tell you, you go to him?” he wheezed, feeling his hands and feet grow cold. “You find him just to leave him again?”

There was a beat of silence.

“You love him too, don’t you?”

Feitan shook and turned his face away. There was no time to admit it. There was no time for any of it now. He’d wasted it when he had his chance. That is, if he ever had a chance.

“I’ll find him,” Hisoka said, taking Feitan by the chin to make him meet his eyes, “so he doesn’t have to die alone.”

He opened his eyes and saw only black. If he tried, he could pretend there were stars somewhere hidden in the night. Ones he recognized. Ones he knew.

“Over the hill,” his lips moved, his voice a thin, reedy note. “I saw….over the hill. Lights. Fire.” The sound of chains. The sound of screams. A hand found his own and squeezed, but Feitan was too weak to squeeze back. “Don’t…leave him alone.”

“I won’t,” Hisoka promised, but it sounded far off, as if muffled through a wall of cotton. “Not this time. Not anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> whelp there we go, i hope you guys enjoyed it. if youd like to see more of my work, check out my page on tumblr (terminallydepraved) and also let me know how you liked this. until next time~


End file.
